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Vickers,
The Vietnamese never beat the U.S. militarily, they did it politically. They also were able to turn the U.S. populace against the war. They broke the back of the French Army at Dien Bien Phu, They tried to do the same thing at Khe Sahn in 1968 and got their butts whipped. Same NVA General Vo Nguyen Giap led both sieges. About the rolling barrage... ineffective at 3rd Ypres and Passchendaele due to the rain and mud. In fact they are still finding the 'dud' rounds to this very day. No... what beat the Germans was the Naval blockade, because it turned the populace of Germany against the Kaiser and the government due to the fact that they were starving. The troops were already sick and tired of years of static trench warfare and the butchery that it led to. As for the amount of French and German losses, the French and Germans lost 800,000 men combined at Verdun in 1916. So my point is nobody really won if you look at the way the war was fought and the aftermath. For comparisons the U.S. lost 58,000 troops killed in Viet Nam in ten years of fighting. The British including (Canadians, Australian, and New Zealand) lost 70,000 in 4 short months of 3rd Ypres. 'In all the campaign reduced the BEF by the equivalent of 10 to 12 divisions out of a total strength of 60.' Robin Prior & Trevor Wilson 'Passchendaele- The Untold Story'. The irony of it all is that the ground the BEF fought and bled to wrest from the Germans, was all recaptured by the Hun in only 3 days in March of 1918. Tell me again how effective Britian was please?
VBR,
Jim
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